2008 Woodie Awards
Reapplying the Noses to Classical Sculpture
David Levine and His Art
Menachem Wecker
Issue date: 12/27/04 Section: Arts & Culture
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D. Levine Ink, Inc.
11 Danbury Avenue
Westport, CT 06880
203-952-9588
info@DavidLevineArt.com
David Levine: Escape
Hung February 12-March 20, 2004
The Forum Gallery
745 Fifth Ave at 57th Street
212-355-4545
He tells me "You need several lifetimes to do everything you need to do," but seventy-eight years old and still drawing up a storm, he has done in one lifetime would few imagine. He estimates that he has made over five thousand drawings, and he speaks of "The hand that never stops. When I'm asleep, I have to hold it." He studied with Hans Hoffman ("What I really got out of him was that I couldn't give up drawing. We got familiar with what he said, and then we rejected it."), and he has been called the "King of Crosshatching," because his shading is easily the most convincing since Daumier. He tells me he draws in pen and ink because the New York Times paper was so awful that he needed the ink to allow the whites to show through.
He legitimately deserves a seat in the caricaturist canon with Sorel, Hirschfeld, Nast and the rest of the gang. On a more personal note, I learnt to draw portraits by spending my class time in high school copying over one hundred fifty of David Levine's caricatures (at the beginning I spent half an hour per drawing), which employ a highly detailed network of pen and ink marks that mercilessly-yet surprisingly lovingly-catch every scar and every wart under an aesthetic microscope.
Mr. Levine has drawn for the Review of Books since 1963. He studied at Pratt Institute, and at the Tyler School of Art (Philadelphia). His work-when it does not caricaturize-explores Coney Island's boardwalks, amusement parks and beaches.
Mr. Levine has a great smile which comes directly from his eyes, and his nose is much shorter than the one he draws in his self portraits (he is Jewish). He wears thick sienna-red glasses, and his hair is silvery. He leads me through his Brooklyn apartment, with narrow halls covered by his caricatures, watercolor paintings and some Oriental drawings; the lighting lends the atmosphere a surreal tinge. We sit in a room set up as a studio, with canvases in various stages of development and cans of brushes. "I am a very political person," he tells me. He sees a reason to his fun poking caricatures, though he stresses the importance of "never allowing distortion to become the reason for being," always remembering that his chosen subject is always "my species."
11 Danbury Avenue
Westport, CT 06880
203-952-9588
info@DavidLevineArt.com
David Levine: Escape
Hung February 12-March 20, 2004
The Forum Gallery
745 Fifth Ave at 57th Street
212-355-4545
He tells me "You need several lifetimes to do everything you need to do," but seventy-eight years old and still drawing up a storm, he has done in one lifetime would few imagine. He estimates that he has made over five thousand drawings, and he speaks of "The hand that never stops. When I'm asleep, I have to hold it." He studied with Hans Hoffman ("What I really got out of him was that I couldn't give up drawing. We got familiar with what he said, and then we rejected it."), and he has been called the "King of Crosshatching," because his shading is easily the most convincing since Daumier. He tells me he draws in pen and ink because the New York Times paper was so awful that he needed the ink to allow the whites to show through.
He legitimately deserves a seat in the caricaturist canon with Sorel, Hirschfeld, Nast and the rest of the gang. On a more personal note, I learnt to draw portraits by spending my class time in high school copying over one hundred fifty of David Levine's caricatures (at the beginning I spent half an hour per drawing), which employ a highly detailed network of pen and ink marks that mercilessly-yet surprisingly lovingly-catch every scar and every wart under an aesthetic microscope.
Mr. Levine has drawn for the Review of Books since 1963. He studied at Pratt Institute, and at the Tyler School of Art (Philadelphia). His work-when it does not caricaturize-explores Coney Island's boardwalks, amusement parks and beaches.
Mr. Levine has a great smile which comes directly from his eyes, and his nose is much shorter than the one he draws in his self portraits (he is Jewish). He wears thick sienna-red glasses, and his hair is silvery. He leads me through his Brooklyn apartment, with narrow halls covered by his caricatures, watercolor paintings and some Oriental drawings; the lighting lends the atmosphere a surreal tinge. We sit in a room set up as a studio, with canvases in various stages of development and cans of brushes. "I am a very political person," he tells me. He sees a reason to his fun poking caricatures, though he stresses the importance of "never allowing distortion to become the reason for being," always remembering that his chosen subject is always "my species."